What Trudeau Lacks in Years, He Makes Up in Spirit

UrbanDictionary.com defines a "concern troll" as "someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with 'concerns.' The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally."

There is no better description for the dozens of op-ed writers (and thousands of anonymous commenters) cautioning Liberals against rallying behind Justin Trudeau as their next leader. The opinions are widely disseminated, but all come back to the same litany of talking points: It's not his time, he's too young, his last name is poison in parts of the country, he hasn't run a successful business, he hasn't accomplished anything noteworthy.

If any of these tropes sound familiar, it's because they're the same weak sauce flung at up-and-coming senator Barack Obama in 2008. This clearly indicated that none of what the concern trolls are falling over themselves will make any damn bit of difference in Trudeau's ability to lead his party to victory in a national election. Instead, these pleas sound like attempts to nudge the Grits towards picking an unexciting candidate who will make Stephen Harper look like George Clooney -- so Canadian readers can suffer another few years' worth of pedantic "Is the Liberal Party Dead?" articles.

Canadian politicians have never been particularly renowned for their charisma. Ours is a history of electing the safe and the bland, of choosing managers over leaders. Ironically, the turning point in virtually every Canadian election has come when we've seen a flash of personality, a quotable moment that provokes headlines and water cooler discussion. Brian Mulroney telling John Turner "You had an option, sir." Jean Chretien's speech about his facial paralysis following a cruel attack ad from the other side. Jack Layton shredding Michael Ignatieff's election hopes with "If Canadians don't show up for work, they don't get a promotion."

Those are the president Bartlet moments we hunger for and latch onto because they are so rare. We may claim we want only the seasoned, sensible accountant to watch the public purse, but we need that firebrand to stir our emotions, to get us thinking, and to spur a true and fair debate on who we are as Canadians and what kind of country we want to create for ourselves: To engage us in the fate of our nation once again. It's quite possible we'd experience a collective freak-out were someone like that to emerge on the scene again; our stolid nature simply wouldn't know how to handle it.

But that would be a good thing.

Justin Trudeau's reluctance to take on the challenge of restoring the bruised and battered Liberal Party suggests that much unlike the copious evidence pouring out of Stephen Harper's every extremity, he has not spent his entire life dreaming of power.

Trudeau could have parachuted into a safe seat during the Chretien heyday and squatted on the backbenches, quietly building an organization of loyalists and working towards an eventual leadership coup. Would this have been considered the more appropriate path to the top by the pundits? Perhaps, but instead, Trudeau chose to run in a Bloc Quebecois riding in an election where the Liberals had already been mired in opposition for an uncomfortable two years under Stephane Dion, who despite good intentions could not connect with a lackadaisical public force-fed with the Conservative "not a leader" meme by a compliant media.

Against odds, Trudeau took the fight to the enemy and won it. He did not coast in on fame and memories of Liberal glories past, nor did he simply promise to cut taxes and be a puppet for his party. He won Papineau by going door to door advancing the ideals that government can be a place for good work when the best people are in charge of it. One does not need to be an exceptional person to keep a corporate balance sheet in the black; the ability to inspire people with deeds, images and words, is a much rarer gift. In Justin Trudeau, one can see these glimmers of the stuff of leadership. Where the concern trolls get the idea that this translates to a lack of life accomplishment is a bit bewildering.

In his four years as an MP, Trudeau has been an advocate for youth, the environment and a vigorous democracy, and has done so while raising a young family. He's shown passion and an unwillingness to moderate his tone when it comes to speaking about what he believes; advancing the notion that principles are more important than electoral totals. And famously, earlier this year, he stood his ground against a hulk of a Conservative Senator and trounced him in a boxing match the Sun News crowd were salivating over the prospect of watching him lose.

In the ring, Trudeau gives everything he's got. The nobility of the fight, what it truly means to the people watching, and not the aggrandizement of the ego of the man, is what matters to him. Do you want to follow the leader because he's leading for your benefit, or for his own? Contrast this against the guy apparently so insecure he has to use your tax dollars to rename the government after himself.

The important thing to keep in mind when concern trolls spout off about a dearth of executive experience on Trudeau's shoulders is Harper's attitude to the contrary: the prime minister is not the president -- and even the president delegates. Even as a rump of its former self the Liberal bench is deep with former cabinet ministers and seasoned professionals who would be well equipped to counsel a potential future prime minister Trudeau on any policies where he felt his own expertise wanting -- to say nothing of who else might choose to stand for election with Trudeau leading the party. And you get the sense that Trudeau would not be afraid to ask, either; that he understands the virtue of surrounding himself with smart people and letting them shine. Again, one must look at this in comparison to Harper's approach of farming out cabinet posts to party hacks and running everything out of the PMO. This strategy leads inevitably to taxpayers footing the bill for $16 orange juice.

We've had enough managers, we've had enough boring old guys droning on about their 18 point plans to reduce the deficit and ensure economic growth to 2050. What will get Canadians excited, what the Liberals need, and what terrifies the concern trolls, is someone who can appeal to our better angels on a visceral level. Someone who can get the cynical back to the polls and who can mobilize the divided yet potent, growing energies on the progressive side into a force that overwhelms the cash-heavy Conservative smear machine. For all his skill as a parliamentarian, I don't see that quality in the dour Thomas Mulcair, and Bob Rae obviously wasn't sure he was that man either. I'll admit that we don't know for certain if Justin Trudeau has that in him. But the volume of ink being expended against his candidacy in the guise of ensuring the long-term future of the Liberals suggests a lot of people on the other side of the spectrum are panicked and are trying, ever so gently, to urge him to stay out of the race, lest a dragon they cannot slay rear its big red head.

That Trudeau is not responding immediately to the media storm about his candidacy (or lack thereof) is encouraging. He's considering his options, consulting his family, and hopefully letting the background noise of the concern trolls wash over him. If he lets any of their feigned worries become the deciding factor, then he wasn't the guy to begin with. But if he decides to step up, I suspect he'll end up doing to the naysayers -- metaphorically, at least -- what he did to Senator Patrick Brazeau.